Time to Celebrate… MOM!

     Ok, ok!  I know Mother’s Day is long gone, but oh well.  I’m still playing catch up and I want to celebrate my mom.  As I said in the letter X blog, my mom is pretty fantastic!  I know I already posted a picture of her, but here’s another one just in case you missed it! And this time, my sister, Erika, make her blog debut!

     As you know, we have completed our alphabet crafts for the year, so I am going to continue this week with theme crafts. Below is the craft my two and three year olds made for their mothers.

     Mother's Day is a tad bit hard to celebrate at the library because most of the kids come with their mothers. I always try to add a surprise element, though. This year, I had the kids and their guardians cut out their hand and then give it to me. I had already prepared the poem, so it was easy to step out of the room for a couple of minutes and glue the hand down. I then gave the kids their hands back and asked them to give it to their mothers. So, there was a little surprise in it and the mothers' loved the cute little poem attached.

     As for my four to six year olds, I wanted them to be able to give their moms a bouquet of flowers.  Now I thought this would be a little bit difficult, however, after a quick little search on the internet, I took two different ideas to create the bouquet below.  It turned out great because each mom got a bouquet of flowers they could put on their tables that would never die!

Cut flowers out of pretty paper and punch a hole in the middle.
Have child put a "bendy" straw through the hole for the stem.

Cut a "vase" out of cardstock and have the kids decorate it.
Tape the vase to a toilet paper tube.  It is important to tape
the bottom of the toilet paper tube so that the flowers
do not fall through.

Place the flowers into the vase and VOILA!
A beautiful vase of flowers that will NEVER DIE!

     There are a lot of great picture books in the world about mom, and why wouldn’t there be?  Moms are REALLY important.  Here a few that I read to the kids.

     Lastly, I found a really great song on iTunes about Mother’s Day.  It’s very cute with a good beat. Here’s a quick little video I made.  Can you find my mom and sister in it?

     That seems to be it for our extra special Mother's Day post!  I hope you and your family had a fantastic Mother's Day!  Remember to appreciate your mom every mother's day, not just on Mother's Day.  Thanks and see you soon!

X is for... X-RAYS!

     I think this blog post should start off with an apology!  I am really sorry I have been missing for so long.  Things at the library get really hectic at the end of April and beginning of May as we start to get ourselves prepared for Summer Reading!  With that said, there is no excuse, and I promise to try much harder in making sure I continue to post each week.

     With that said, the letter Xx was a fun one.  As you can imagine, there isn’t much one can do with the letter Xx, so I chose the typical Xx is for X-Ray. As I mentioned in my last post, I have to make a little “shout out” to my mom because she takes X-Rays for a living!  My mom is absolutely fantastic, just ask anyone who has ever had an X-Ray done by her! Haha!  And since it is almost Mother's Day, how fitting to make this one for my mom!

Materials:  Index card with capital X, black crayon, four white bones cut from cardstock, and a glue stick.

Front of card

Back of card

1)    Color the capital X Black.

2)    Trace the upper and lower case Xx on the back of the card.

3)    Glue the bones on the X to make it look like an X-Ray.

     As for our second craft, well, I thought about going with xylophone.  I even tried to figure out a way to create a xylophone, but guess what?  It was too difficult.  So I found another X-Ray craft at Spell Outloud that I thought would be fun as well as a little challenging.  My kids really did enjoy drawing themselves and then using chalk to draw their bones.  Here are a couple of pictures that I borrowed online.  I can't seem to find mine around here anywhere!

This is the blank person.  I had the kids draw the person to look
exactly like them, or as close as the could get.

This is the X-Ray person.  I gave a black piece of paper to the kids
with a piece of chalk.  I then asked them to draw what they thought their
bones looked like.  We attached the two pieces with a metal brad.

     Instead of the normal two books, this week, I just went with one.  It’s kind of hard to find books about X-Rays, so You Can’t See Your Bones with Binoculars by Harriet Ziefert was a perfect pull for a one book Story Time.  Warning, though, this book is REALLY long and filled with lots of details, thus I stuck to just singing the “Bone Song” which is at the top of each page!  The kids loved being able to point to the different parts of their body and didn’t even notice we didn’t read the whole story.

     I decided to take it easy and not introduce any new music this week.  I have planned for next week, though, and promise to add a video to the blog.  It does seem to be a little lacking without a music video, doesn’t it?  Let’s see if I can find a fun X-Ray song on YouTube.  How about a Phineas and Ferb song!  I love this show!

     Well, that seems to it for this week.  It feels good to be blogging again and I promise to try my hardest to get the next few letters up!  Keep checking in as I work really hard to catch up!  Thanks.. next up is Yy!

V is for... Vases and VOLCANOES!

     Have you ever tried to do a science experiment with 13 kindergarteners?  I tried this very thing with my Kinder Corner class, and let me tell you something, I learned a couple of VALUBALE lessons!  The first, always have extra ingredients because after the first spill of vinegar, I ran out.  The second, no matter how reassuring you may be, if you tell a kid something is going to explode they will either love it or be scared out of their minds!  There really is no in-between. 

     So what does this have to do with the letter V and Story Time?  Well, as you may have read last week, we tackled volcanoes this week.  I will get back to that in a minute, first; let’s discuss the letter of the week card.  I found the most adorable letter V turned into a flower vase online and just knew I had to do it, especially since spring has sprung!

Materials:  Index card with capital V, 3 flower stickers, 3 green paper stems, crayons, and glue stick

Front of card

Back of card

1)    Color the capital V.

2)    Trace the upper and lower case Vv on the back of the card.

3)    Glue the green stems inside the V.  Stick the flowers on top of the stems.

     Ok, I said I would get back to my volcano, and now is the time.  If any one of you has ever been in a science fair, undoubtedly someone made a Papier-mâché volcano and erupted it.  Well, that is exactly what we did. Only I learned from my Kinder Corner Science experiment mistakes.  Instead of having every child in Story Time explode their volcano, each kid made one, and then I exploded mine.  After class, I gave each child the instructions as well as a list of ingredients so that they could explode their volcano at their home.  Good idea, huh?  In order to see the volcano in action, watch the video!  It really is fun and exciting.  As for how to make the actual volcano, click here.  It was the easiest volcano I could find!

     The route I went with my book choices this week was a little different than usual.  Instead of picking a book on vases, I picked a spring counting book called Flowers and Showers by RebeccaFjelland Davis.  This book was fun because not only were the kids able to do a little counting; the pictures were vibrant and very spring-y!

     When I did a search for picture books on volcanoes, not much came up that was short enough for my kids to sit through.  I ended up going with Volcanoes: Nature’s Incredible Fireworks.  This is a great book not only because it is non-fiction, but the pictures are amazing.  The boys in my class were really into this book.  The loved all of the action pictures of volcanoes exploding.

     I did have one really fun spring song that I used this week.  It is appropriately titled, “Spring,” by Kidzup Educational Music.  I like a lot of this company’s music and tend to use it a lot.

     That’s it for this week!  I hope you enjoyed the exploding volcano!  I know we had a lot of fun doing it!  Come back and see us next week when we cover the letter W!

U is for.. Umbrellas and Unicycles!

     The letter U is difficult.  Outside of the normal, umbrella, I was having a rough time coming up with something.  So I thought for a bit, and came up with unicycle.  Why not introduce the kids to something new and interesting?  I did, however, keep the umbrella for our letter card.

Materials:  Index card with capital U, umbrella cut from cardstock, raindrops cut from foam, crayons, and gluestick

Front of card

Back of card

1)    Color the capital U.

2)    Trace the upper and lower case Uu on the back of the card.

3)    Color the umbrella.

4)    Glue the umbrella to the U.

5)    Add the raindrops!

     The next craft is probably one of my favorites for the year.  As I mentioned, I decided to go with unicycle.  First let me state, I was very impressed that a number of my 4 to 6 year olds actually knew what this was.  I was also excited that I found a cute and somewhat simple unicycle craft online.  Find the craft with instructions and an instructional video here.

     I absolutely love the books I chose this week.  The first book, Ella, of Course! by Sarah Weeks,  is about a little girls who receives a beautiful umbrella for her birthday.  Ella, of course, loves her umbrella and wants to take it everywhere with her.  You can only begin to imagine the kinds of troubles created when Ella takes her umbrella to ballet class, her brother’s birthday party, and all sorts of other places.  You must, however, pick up the book yourself to see how Ella incorporates her umbrella into her dance recital.  I promise, it will not disappoint.

     My second book for the older kids was not about a unicycle.  I tried, I really did, however, there is only one book I could find with a unicycle in it and our copy was checked out.  So, I went a different route.  I chose My Sister’s Rusty Bike by Jim Aylesworth.   This book has a bicycle as the central focus, instead of a unicycle.  After reading it aloud, I then had the kids discuss what the differences between a bicycle and unicycle are.  It seemed to go over well. 

 

     I didn’t introduce any new music this week.  We are starting to wind down Story Time and before you know it, it’s going to be summer!  I can’t believe it.  Thus, I am waiting to introduce new songs until then.  Okay, truthfully, I am on kind of a strict budget, and although iTunes has cheap music, I didn’t find anything that I liked.  Oh well, maybe next week!

     Well, that’s a wrap for this week!  Come back next week for the letter V.  Trust me, you want to tune in!  There is going to be a VOLCANO!  See ya then!

    

St. Patrick's Day and Chicks Hatch!

     As many of you know, I was out of the state last week for the PLA conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  I had a blast and learned a lot.  However, I do need to thank Miss Suzanne because without her, I wouldn’t have been able to go.  She did ALL of my nine programs last week, while also dealing with the hatch of our chicks.  She informed me that by the end of last week, she was exhausted and happy to have me back!  AWW!

      As the title to this post mentions, we celebrated to “holidays” this week and decided that it was just too much to also add in the Letter of the Week.  With our two and three year olds we did a St. Patrick’s Day craft and with our four to six year olds, we did a St. Patrick’s Day craft and a chick craft.

     For St. Patrick’s day, I cut our a large, black cauldron as well as “gold” coins.  I had the kids write on the coins what they would wish for if they “caught a leprechaun.”  Some of the answers were typical; pony, kite, Batman, and a new Spongebob Pillow.  My favorite, “Safe travels for Miss Jaymi.”  How cute is that?

     The second craft, as mentioned, was made by the four to six year old class.  With the chicks hatching and Easter on its way, I thought it might be fun to see if we could turn a plastic egg in to a chick.  I seem to have misplaced my chick, though you can find the instructions on how to make this chick and many other animals here.  What do you think?

     The books that Miss Suzanne chose to read this week were all chick/hatching based.  Now, why didn’t she add a St. Patrick’s Day book?  Well, if you have ever tried to find a good read-aloud St. Patrick’s Day book, you know that one doesn’t exist… yet!  Well, perhaps does one exist, I just haven’t found it.  Hint hint… authors and publishers.. get on this now for next year!  Here are the books Miss Suzanne read instead.

     Lastly, St. Patrick’s is a great day for music.  There are some really great Celtic songs out there.  Though I did have a hard time finding an upbeat song to use the parachute with, I ended up choosing the song below.  Don’t pay attention to the message of the song, my kids never do!  Just listen to the fantastic rhythm and beat!

     Well, that seems to be all for this week.  I hope you watched the video to see the adorable baby chicks we hatched this year.  I am really sad I missed it.  I hope you tune in next week to see the letter Uu!  Thanks!

Day 5... The end is near

 The longer I am in Philadelphia, the harder it is for me to get up in the morning.  Diane is getting up bright and early each morning while I am struggling to get up by 7:30 am.  With first sessions starting at 8:15 am, I am kind of cutting it close.  I can only imagine how the people who are coming from Seattle or even Alaska are handling the early morning sessions.  Indiana is in the same time zone as Philadelphia and I am struggling!
     Anyways, back to business.  The first session I went to today was all about the importance of the word.  The  information presented in this program was very poignant.  I think the one thing that really stuck out for me was the amount of television and imputed a child should have before they are two years old.  I am sure you will be just as surprised as I was to hear that the answer is NONE.  That's right, a child should not be allowed to sit in front of a television or computer screen before they are two years old because it suppresses their language development skills.

     The other interesting factoid I took from this session is how important "play talk" is.  For those of you who attend my story times, you know that at the end of each class, I pull out a large box of toys and let the kids play.  For a while, I have been wondering how much the kids are really getting out of this.  However, this session today reaffirmed the fact that it is an essential part of literacy because it no longer becomes organized teaching, it becomes daily learning and understanding.
     After a short break for breakfast, I attended a session about early literacy and school readiness.  My library just recently started looking at this in terms of what AREN'T we doing.  I have been doing story times for almost three years and yet it wasn't until last school year that I even read my  state's standards.  What?  How am I supposed to prepare these young minds for school if I don't even know even know what my district expects from them?  I did take away a few great ideas from this session and I hope to be able to enact a couple when I return.  I'm not going to tell you what they are though... It's a surprise. 

     Next session was probably one I was most excited for which would also make sense as to why I was so disappointed by how it turned out.  The session was all about programs that would pack the library.  Although the information provided by the four speakers was amazing, the types of ideas they presented were something our library could never do.  These libraries built extra buildings, they held six week long festivities, and even created mobile exhibits.  I thought I would be getting lots of ideas on how to bring people into the library, however, the presenters focused on one or two events they had in which a lot of people attended and they had lots of community help.  The only thing that we have at the moment that is similar would be the Summer Reading Kickoff Carnival.  Although disappointed, I still learned about some grant opportunities that our library will definitely be looking in to.

This poster is from our Summer Reading Carnival in 2011.

     To say that I am glad I got to my last session early is an understatement.  Boy was this session FULL.  I guess everyone wants to know how to introduce story times for children that are on the Autism Spectrum.  This is an area that I believe our library should begin to focus on.  The special needs community definitely needs to have a place in the library.  With that said, I am all for integrating special needs children into "regular" story time.  However from what I learned today, sometimes the parents don't want this.  I got a lot of great ideas from this session that I can incorporate into my weekly story times.  I am also toying with the idea of starting a once a month special needs story time in the fall.  Depending on the interest, it's possible this program could become      bi-weekly or even weekly.  However, I will never know if a program like this is needed unless I put it out there.  Stay tuned to see how I work this needed program into our already busy schedule.  If there's a will (which there is), there's a way.

     Well, that's it for for day 5.  Guess what?  Tomorrow is the last day of PLA.  I can't believe it's almost over.  I feel like this week has flown by.  Tomorrow I will be attending two sessions.  One is about how to program for pregnant and parenting teens while the second is a session called "Teen Speak.". Although I work with little children,  our library has a large teen population and if there is any way I can figure out how to effectively communicate with the teens without ostracizing them, I am going to take it.  And the best part of tomorrow...  Listening to BETTY WHITE.  That's right... I will be listening to the Golden Girl herself.  I have no idea what she is going to be talking about, but who cares!  It's bound to be hilarious!    Tune in tomorrow to see what I learn and what Betty White has to say!

* *  I should note that none of these pictures are mine.  They are images that I have taken from Google images.  :)